Technical Information

Full Tilt! Pinball (known simply as Full Tilt!) is a pinballvideo game developed by Cinematronics and published by Maxis in 1995. It featured pre-rendered3D graphics and three "tables", which were essentially different games. The tables were called Space Cadet, Skulduggery, and Dragon's Keep. On each table, there were displays on the side which showed the players' score, ball number, player number, a display for various information and a table-specific image.

Contents

Tables

Space Cadet

The Space Cadet table features the player as a member of a space fleet that completes missions to increase their rank. Players can attain 9 different ranks (listed from lowest to highest): Cadet, Ensign, Lieutenant, Captain, Lieutenant Commander, Commander, Commodore, Admiral, and Fleet Admiral. Players accept a mission by hitting "mission targets" which select which mission they will take, and by going up the "launch ramp". Each mission has a set number of things for players to do, such as hitting the "attack bumpers" (which are a set of four bumpers at the top of the table) eight times (this is the "target practice" mission). Missions end either when the goal is met, or when all of the lights under the launch ramp (a.k.a. fuel lights) turn off. The fuel lights turn off after a certain amount of time, and can each be turned on by having the ball go over them, or all at once by going up the launch ramp again. Upon completing a mission, some of the blue lights in a circle in the middle of the table turn on. When all of the lights in the blue circle turn on, the player's rank increases, and a light in the orange circle turns on. This table (and possibly the others) contains cheat codes that must be typed in at the beginning of the game. Typing in the words "hidden test" (with a space between the words) accesses Hidden Test mode. Hidden Test mode allows the player to click and drag the mouse to move the ball, makes the 2nd place slot in the High Scores table show a score of 1,000,000,000 by pressing the H key on the keyboard, and makes the ball appear on the board during the startup sequence when B is pressed. Also in Hidden Test mode, typing M shows a message box with a number displayed, with the title "Mem.:". Lastly, typing in "bmax" gives the player unlimited lives (balls). Space Cadet is included, by default, on all computers running Microsoft Windows ME and all computers running Microsoft Windows XP. The game can be found in these computers by going to the GAMES section of the start menu on these versions of Windows.

The "Hidden Test" cheat code does not work on the Full Tilt! version of the game, however it does work on the Windows version. However the other cheats do work on the Full Tilt! version.

Skulduggery

The Skulduggery table features a treasure hunt where the player must find Peg Leg's loot. Player can accomplish that two ways: either by piecing together a treasure map or by activating and completing a series of mini-games on the table called modes. Modes are like missions and quests of the other two tables. They are all pirate themed mini-games, such as ship battle, tavern fight, escape Bermuda Triangle, mutiny, and sword fight.

Dragon's Keep

The Dragon's Keep table features a fantasy environment where players must accomplish various quests, leading to the slaying of a dragon. The quests include Dragon Hoard (steal the hoard), Fire Lizard Attack (defeat the fire lizard), Rescue Maiden (rescue the damsel in distress), Dragon Pass (find the path to dragon's lair), Wizard's Fury, and Slay Dragon. The player can acquire awards such as spells, weapons, and armors. While weapons simply add points to the score, armors and spells temporarily turn on various gates, magnets, and chutes on the table to change the gameplay.

As the Maxis version contained significant portions of x86 assembly language, much of the game had to be rewritten in C[citation needed] to accommodate the MIPS, Alpha, and PowerPC platforms that Windows NT supported at the time. It contained only the Space Cadet table. The graphics of this version are only available in the 640x480 resolution, while the Maxis version comes in 3 different resolutions adjustable to a maximum of 1024x768. The image on the side is a two-dimensional image as opposed to pre-rendered 3D. The words Maxis and Cinematronics have been changed from the yellow to a dark red, making them harder to see. It also sports a splash screen that merely says 3D Pinball and shows a small pinball graphic with faded edges.

The look and feel of the two versions are similar, except Full Tilt! Pinball version has better animation, various resolutions that players can select from and multi-ball play, and extra music and sound. Music is not enabled by default in the Windows version. The gameplay in both versions is almost identical except for a few minor differences; most notably the completion of a mission in the Maxis version resulted in a "replay" (actually a ball save rather than a special) being awarded and hitting a wormhole that has the same color light activating the multi-ball round; these are not the case in the Windows version, where completing a mission merely awards bonus points and hitting a wormhole in the above circumstances awards a replay.